McConnell decries Biden's plan to tax the unrealized capital gains of millionaires when they die, calling it "a second estate tax" that could be "a devastating blow" to some families —> bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
“These are not necessarily rich people," McConnell said. "These are people that worked hard throughout their lifetime and would like to be able to leave behind a family farm or their small business to their children.”
*BUT*, Biden has a family farm/small biz exemption, so...
Bloomberg reported earlier that the heirs of Jeff Bezos alone could face a tax bill of tens of billions on his ~180B unrealized, untaxed capital gain at death under Biden's plan.
McConnell and other Republicans have long opposed taxes on inherited wealth.
He has cosponsored John Thune's bill this year to eliminate the 40% estate tax, which presently hits estates exceeding $11.7 million for singles and couple that for couples.
The Tax Policy Center estimates less than 2,000 people a year die rich enough to pay the estate tax. <0.1% taxpolicycenter.org/topic/individu….
The cost of the tax break on unrealized capital gains at death exceeds $40B/year, per JCT.
It's one of the biggest tax breaks in the code — about the size of the budget for NIH.
About that Biden family farm/small business exemption: WH has said families wouldn't have to pay tax *IF* the business continues to be run by the family.
But, if you want to cash out of the farm/small business anyway, you have to pay up.
Van Hollen's draft legislation along these lines includes an optional 15-year payback of the tax bill, with interest, on illiquid assets.
Jeff Bezos' heirs would have to pay tens of billions of additional taxes on his ~$180B untaxed capital gain at death if Biden's tax plan becomes law bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
ceteris paribus
40% estate tax would also apply after ~43% cap gains and Medicare taxes plus potentially some state tax too. Under current law, the never-taxed capital gain goes to zero at death no matter how large.
Apparently a senator getting his news from Fox News ... chyrons? That is if I'm reading this tweet correctly. Not 💯% sure.
Also, I think if Google had been named Goggle we still would all be using it and we'd all be Goggling everything. "What have you Goggled today" and so on.
One proposal with few visible opponents among the voting public but never seems to get anywhere in Congress:
A la carte cable.
There are conservatives who would love to stop paying MSNBC every month and liberals who would love to stop paying for Fox; people who wonder why their bill includes a massive payment to some billionaire team owners for a local sports network they never watch, and on and on.
You can cut the cord, but streaming services don't yet offer rifle shot a la carte subscriptions to each of the channels you want.
Biden targets a tax break for rich real estate investors that allows them to avoid ever paying capital gains tax bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Folks may not know this, but real estate investors can often flip their profits into new properties without paying tax through this tax break. And when they die, all their accumulated cap gains winnings die with them.
So Biden would nix the tax break on real estate gains above $500K, and then, when you die, unrealized cap gains >$1M would be taxed.
Biden tax plan expands marriage penalty for some wealthier two-income couples on combined income north of $509K bloomberg.com/news/articles/…
Admin says tax hike will hit ~1% highest earning taxpayers + corps. The big cap gains hike is limited to taxpayers with income exceeding $1M/Year - about 0.3% of taxpayers.
There's an existing marriage penalty for some very high-income couples written into Trump's tax law.